Former Yankee Melky Cabrera pulled off a great and also confusing play against his old team last night in Chicago.
It happened in the fifth inning, when future Hall of Famer Aaron Judge sent a towering shot to left field. It did not look like he got quite all of it—Judge certainly didn’t think so after making contact—but Melky tracked the ball all the way back to the wall and made a leaping try for it.
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Then the ball disappeared. Cabrera turned around to the wall, as if to see where it went in the crowd, for a full five Mississippis. He fooled everyone—Judge, the fans, the broadcasters (although Yankees radio man John Sterling doesn’t need the help).
I don’t know why Melky would do this. Maybe his brain was just a little bit fried, or maybe he needed to entertain himself after a long night at the ballpark that was only going to get longer. Judge later struck out with the tying run on base to end the game.
It was, all in all, a rough night for the Yankees. The start of the game was delayed three hours due to rain and when it finally got underway, Yankees rookie Dustin Fowler went down almost immediately with a gruesome knee injury.
Fowler was making his Major League debut in right field and 14 pitches in, José Abreu hit a line drive that was slicing down the line and into the stands. Fowler ran into the wall to make the catch and wound up rupturing his patellar tendon. He had to be taken to the hospital for surgery because he had an open wound and they were worried about infection.
The Yankees lost 4-3 and did not get into Houston for their three-game series against the Astros until 6 AM.